Oil spills from shipwrecks, drilling platform blow-outs and pipeline failures may have a devastating impact on the surrounding environment. For example, spilled oil penetrates into the plumage of birds and the fur of mammals, reducing its insulating ability, and making them more vulnerable to temperature fluctuations and much less buoyant in the water. Clean up and recovery from an oil spill is difficult and may take weeks, months or even years. One method of cleaning up and disposing of the spilled oil is by collecting and burning it “in situ”, but current in situ burning technology is inefficient and slow or requires complicated, expensive mechanical systems which subject to malfunction and break down.
Therefore, there is a need for improved, less costly methods and systems to clean-up and dispose of oil spills by burning.